Consumers have an ever-increasing array of options for consuming media content, in terms of the types of media content (e.g., video, audio, text, etc.), providers of the media content, and devices for consuming the media content. Media content providers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and effective at providing media content quickly and reliably to consumers.
Media content (e.g., movies, television shows, videos, music, and electronic books) is often streamed over networks using adaptive bitrate streaming for playback on a viewer's device. Adaptive bitrate streaming includes determining a user's device bandwidth and hardware resources (e.g., available central processing unit (CPU) capacity) in real time and adjusting the quality of the media content that is requested and played back on the user's device to account for changes in the bandwidth and hardware resources. Fragments at different quality levels, or bitrates, of the media content detailed in a manifest file are requested individually and stored in a buffer for playback.